ABSTRACT
A. PRELIMINARY LOOKING BACK on the last chapter we can conclude with the absurd intelligence of Alice in Wonderland: 'Everybody has won and all shall have prizes.' Everybody has won because, to quote Cobb1 again, 'no person with only one point of view can explain the whole phenomenon of emotion'. Or as English and English2 declare: 'Emotion is virtually impossible to define . . . except in terms of conflicting theories. . . . ' The great variety of hypotheses has been necessary to shed light on the phenomenon from many sides. They do not annul or disprove each other. As Wilder says:
From a monistic standpoint the terms 'psychic', 'organic', 'physiologic', 'biochemical', etc., only denote different frames of reference which may be used to describe the organism in its environment. One is no more fundamental than any other, and phenomena described in one frame of reference do not cause the phenomena described in any other. Conclusions derived from data in one frame of reference cannot be proved or disproved by comparison with data derived in another frame of reference .... 3
In other words we have been dealing, as we said in the Introduction, with a complex phenomenon which requires a complex system of explanation. A demonstration of this by means of the testimony of theories is a main result of the second part. The conclusion that emotion is a complex phenomenon is nothing new, since emotion has been defined as such by writers as diverse as Stout, 4 Ribot, 5 Lehmann,6 Laignel-Lavastine,7 Jaspers,8 Young,9 Woodworth and Marquis,10 McKellar11-to name but a few. Even such exact attempts
attheprecisionofemotionasintheoperationalistconstructtheories presentedbyBeebe-Centercometotheconclusion:
Feelingandemotionaretrulyall-pervasive.Almostanydependent variabletakenasanindexoffeelingoremotionwillbefoundtobe correlatedinsomedegreewithatremendousnumberofotherdependent variables. 1
Moreimportant,someevenviewthiscomplexityastheessential characteristicofemotion,therebymakingitthedominanthypothesis foratheory.ForexampleLandiswrites:
Itseemsthatemotioncanbestbecharacterizedasarelationshipexistingbetweenmanydiverseelementsofexperienceandreaction.2
